[nquyen]

To compete in markets such as India and Indonesia... which in-case you didn't know, are some of BlackBerry's highest priority markets. What are they doing to compete when their "cheap" phone still costs $200. I no longer have a BlackBerry or hold BBRY shares (well they were RIMM), but I still support them, however as of late it would appear time is running out for BlackBerry in terms of the consumer market. Again, this is just conjecture as the earnings report has not come out yet and this $25 smartphone has yet to be shown.

Link: Why Mozilla Is Selling a $25 Smartphone - TIME

[SirJes]

A $25 smartphone that hasn't launched, no specs, along with a new os, to also compete with tizen, the new os from Samsung

I'm interested on everyone's views to come in this thread

Posted via CB10

[Elite1]

Not on the main topic, but just to respond to your earnings report comment: There won't be good news from this earnings report. It's still too soon.

I don't know if the Z10 firesale in India is enough to matter in the grand scheme of things, nor can I recall for how much of the quarter the Z3 was already available. Hopefully we're all pleasantly surprised!

Anyway, this goes to show you just how much BBRY needs to continue this trend and release an even cheaper handset next year.

[Bla1ze]

Hope it's better than their first one - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/...guide/ZTE_OPEN

[anon(5906760)]

The mozilla OS is probably so stripped down that it could run on a 250mhz cpu with no problems.

BlackBerry should try this too, which was what I was expecting from the z3, which is sell a phone for less than 100 bucks. Sell millions of them.

Then you'll start getting developers because there will be so many people accessing BlackBerry world.

Even if they have to strip major features out of the device, just get the price low enough so that people could buy them without having to empty their bank accounts.

Posted via CB10

[nquyen]

It may be too early to speculate on how this phone will fair, but personally I see it being a game changer in its own regard.

[nquyen]

The mozilla OS is probably so stripped down that it could run on a 250mhz cpu with no problems.

BlackBerry should try this too, which was what I was expecting from the z3, which is sell a phone for less than 100 bucks. Sell millions of them.

Then you'll start getting developers because there will be so many people accessing BlackBerry world.

Even if they have to strip major features out of the device, just get the price low enough so that people could buy them without having to empty their bank accounts.

Posted via CB10

Not sure why I can't "Like" this, but I agree with this. I was expecting a BlackBerry phone for the masses...

[afhstingray]

Mozilla was nice enough to send me these babies. I was shocked at how fully functional the OS was. There were issues like stuttering transitions etc as these were running non final builds, but basically all the features you can think of from portable hotspot to toast notifications were there. I definitely would not classify it as "stripped down". The UI looks pretty too. As you can see from the screens, we've completed almost all the translation/localisation for malaysia.

[birdman_38]

Mozilla was nice enough to send me these babies.

And you are??

[Breezygirl8]

Wow, looks so much better than the new iPhone rumored photos.

Posted with my amazing Z10

[afhstingray]

And you are??

someone who's very involved in mobile. blackberry used to send us their prototypes too, as some of the software we develop are preloaded onto the devices in certain markets.

[Aljean Thein]

I wouldn't expect a lot from a $25 phone. You get what you paid for after all

Posted via CB10

[LeeU1911]

someone who's very involved in mobile. blackberry used to send us their prototypes too, as some of the software we develop are preloaded onto the devices in certain markets.

Used to? now they don't anymore? Why is that so..

[afhstingray]

Used to? now they don't anymore? Why is that so..

without giving too much away, we're moving away from app development, and blackberry is cutting a lot of costs. we used to get devices from them up to 6 months before official announcement/launch, now its more like a month before. naturally we were under NDA and they required us to leave the rubber "disguise" casing on at all times untill announcement. In fact one promo video we had to shoot for blackberry, we were using the then-unannounced torch 2 (9810). So the video was shot with the black rubber disguise on lol.

and the hard truth is, the carriers in our markets are not really supporting blackberry anymore, so there is reduced need for them to send us early devices for preload testing.

[trwallace]

25 dollar phones do only one thing. Bring the cost of high end phones down. Sure it will be a piece of crap but it will be a phone that works. Remember what happened to DVD players they went to zero. That's advancing technology for you. Its a road apple wants to stay clear of as they try to maintain margin.

Posted via the Android CrackBerry App!

[VR6]

This might kill off many flagships

[afhstingray]

i dont think its gonna kill off any flagships. Oppo and Xiaomi will do that job. This one will kill off devices like the nokia X. By the way, in the Firefox OS marketplace, you already have apps like facebook and line messenger.

[Bla1ze]

i dont think its gonna kill off any flagships. Oppo and Xiaomi will do that job. This one will kill off devices like the nokia X. By the way, in the Firefox OS marketplace, you already have apps like facebook and line messenger.

They're all web apps. Not that it matters, just saying. Though they've moved to fully packaged apps now.

[sentimentGX4]

Can't say that I'm impressed. Nokia's Lumia 520 is already <50 USD and there are hoards of Androids (esp. Asian OEM ones) at this price point already. Mozilla was way too late into the "cheap wins!" smartphone OS game. The race to the bottom is finished already. If it's going to be another one of those Firefox OSes with abysmal specs again, there are a lot of Android options at 25 USD.

[Bla1ze]

Can't say that I'm impressed. Nokia's Lumia 520 is already <50 USD and there are hoards of Androids (esp. Asian OEM ones) at this price point already. Mozilla was way too late into the "cheap wins!" smartphone OS game. The race to the bottom is finished already. If it's going to be another one of those Firefox OSes with abysmal specs again, there are a lot of Android options at 25 USD.

^
An idea of how apps run.

[nquyen]

This might kill off many flagships

I don't think anyone, including Mozilla, is considering this to be a flagship contender. It will however prove to be an interesting way of spreading their OS and gaining a large chunk of the marketshare if they do it well enough.

[LoneStarRed]

Hold whole I dodge some of that falling sky.

[afhstingray]

They're all web apps. Not that it matters, just saying. Though they've moved to fully packaged apps now.

for now, they're targetting users in rural areas. to give you an example, my parents are quite elderly so we have a domestic helper from indonesia- she's from a relatively small village on one of the smaller islands, she spent $10 on her phone, and for $10 its none too shabby! Dual SIM, Only has EDGE but she can watch tv (built in TV receiver), listen to mp3's,FM tuner, check news via opera mini, it has a messaging app preinstalled, think its wechat, so on and so forth. QVGA screen but decent colour on that. Mozilla is trying to move feature phone users like that to FFOS, but they also want to become a bit of a stabilizing force so google dosent go nuts. other than BB10 and FFOS i cant think of another smartphone OS today, other than maybe iOS that dosent harvest your info so you can be advertised to. But i highly doubt we'll see an iOS phone under even $300

[sati01]

They are going to sell a lot of those phones, most of the world population that don't have a smartphone is in that price tier.
Firefox OS simple and easy to use. They don't have many apps, but in that price range is not that important. They are competing with dumb phones or feature phones.

[crazigee]

Mozilla was nice enough to send me these babies. I was shocked at how fully functional the OS was. There were issues like stuttering transitions etc as these were running non final builds, but basically all the features you can think of from portable hotspot to toast notifications were there. I definitely would not classify it as "stripped down". The UI looks pretty too. As you can see from the screens, we've completed almost all the translation/localisation for malaysia.

Those actually look pretty nice! And $25 isn't bad either.

Posted using my Asus Transformer TF700T via the CrackBerry App